Book Review With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God by Skye Jethani

With offers readers an opportunity to consider their relationship with God, presenting five ‘postures’ we Christians may take with God. These five postures, life under God, life over God, life from God, life for God, life with God describe the how we relate to God, what we expect from Him or what is expected from us for Him.

Five relationship postures

The first four postures don’t seem to be inherently wrong, and at the end of the book, Jethani offers the idea that perhaps each of us relates with God in each of the four ways, but the underlying point is that God wants to do life with us, a fifth relationship posture. The other relationship postures are flat or missing something of the essential element that God longs to have with us, with us. Skye Jethani also addresses the pitfalls and shortcomings of each of the first four postures which relate mainly to fear, control, guilt, and pain.

The last half of the book discusses the ways that life with God puts forth our goal as relationship with God and how this opens the door to understand faith, hope and love in a new way. He describes how life with God is an on-going experience of knowing God. The faith, hope, and love of God also address the pitfalls and shortcomings of the other postures, freeing us from fear, control, guilt, and pain we may continue to experience in the other postures.

Assessing With

The author does a thorough job of describing the way that we may approach God and how the first four postures likely leave the Christian life lacking and ultimately unfulfilling. He says they are temporary postures. As I read, I was anxious to get to the part that I was waiting for – life with God. But I found as I read that I could also see the other postures in myself and those around me. Ultimately, though, I want to know God, and this book offers the opportunity to look at ourselves and see if we are truly seeking God; or if we are seeking instead to control the world around us by manipulating God, his Word, his principles, etc.

Having worked with a broad section of society, the author shares numerous relatable stories of those of us who find ourselves, at one time or another, in the midst of a relationship with God that is under, for, over, or from Him. These examples, anecdotes, and stories are complemented by the Bible stories that he sites to show that we may fall into these categories, but we need not stay there.

Five stars

I find strength in the argument that God wants to live life with us and Skye Jethani presents a clear and articulate assessment of the postures many of us take in approaching God and how there is perhaps another, deeper way to experience God, then he discusses how to do so. Jethani challenges readers to go beyond the comfortable place we may be in to find depth in God.